Amazon sellers were forced to pay 56.54 million yuan and owed employees 80 million yuan in compensation

As the former No. 1 cross-border stock, it is difficult for Cross-Border Link to recover once it has fallen from the altar. From the 10 billion club to being heavily in debt, from being a top seller to facing the risk of delisting.

Now that Cross-Border Link is almost crushed by the huge debt, it has chosen to auction off the founder's shares.

Recently, Cross-Border Link released an announcement on the progress of the judicial auction of part of the shares of its largest shareholder.

As of the date of disclosure of the announcement, the founder of Cross-Border Link, Yang Jianxin, held a total of 172,805,848 shares, and the number of shares auctioned this time accounted for 6.40% of his total shares.

▲ Picture source: Cross-border Communication Announcement

From 0:00 on July 27 to 10:00 on July 28, 2023, Cross-border Link conducted an open online judicial auction on the JD.com judicial auction platform. In the end, the above-mentioned shares were successfully sold to the bidder at a transaction price of 40.7226 million yuan.

Cross-Border Link stated that the judicial auction of shares was mainly due to a debt dispute , but it would not lead to changes in the company's control and would not affect the company's continued operations.

In fact, in December last year, Cross-border Link also conducted a judicial auction. Due to the illegal disposal of stock pledges, the 39,322,952 shares held by the largest shareholder Yang Jianxin were sold at a high price of 162 million yuan.

This year, Yang Jianxin has reduced his holdings several times, including 121,700 shares on March 1 at a price of 4.69 yuan per share, and 110,000 shares on March 29 at a price of 4.72 yuan per share.

▲ Picture source: Cross-border Communication Announcement

It can be seen that Cross-border Link, which is currently mired in debt, is in deep operational crisis. Public information shows that as of 2022, Cross-border Link’s total liabilities amounted to 2.539 billion yuan, of which interest-bearing liabilities amounted to 1.448 billion yuan.

Due to its inability to repay debts and its obvious lack of repayment ability, the creditors applied to the Taiyuan Intermediate People's Court for reorganization of Cross-Border Link on May 10. The Taiyuan Intermediate People's Court has not yet made a final ruling, but if the reorganization fails, Cross-Border Link is likely to face the risk of bankruptcy or even delisting.

Looking at Cross-Border Link’s performance in 2022: revenue was 7.255 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.73%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 17.8423 million yuan, a year-on-year plunge of 97.35%.

Although the downward trend has been restrained compared with the previous two years, it is still difficult to quickly improve profitability in a short period of time. Therefore, facing these heavy debts and lack of repayment ability, whether Cross-Border Link can survive is still full of unknowns.

In the past two years, the industry has been undergoing a torrent of change. Not only have small and medium-sized sellers faced increasing challenges in going global, but the fate of top sellers has also been up and down. In addition to the heavily indebted Cross-Border Link, the recent litigation dispute involving Black Shark Technology, another well-known Amazon seller, has also attracted attention in the industry.

It is understood that Black Shark Technology is a mobile technology brand that focuses on gaming and e-sports. In addition to mobile phone products, Black Shark Technology is also committed to the research and development of gaming peripheral products, covering multiple categories of peripheral products such as heat dissipation, control, and audio.

Black Shark Technology's brand Black Shark has entered the Amazon platform, selling products including blue-ear headphones, mobile phones, gaming peripherals, etc. Among them, Bluetooth headphones are the best-selling products, with many products rating over 5,000, accumulating a certain product reputation.

However, recently, Tianyancha information showed that Black Shark Technology had added a new person to be executed, involving an amount of up to 56.5352 million yuan. The case was mainly a financial loan contract dispute with the Nanchang Branch of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited.

It is learned that Black Shark Technology has been involved in various disputes many times since this year. On January 28, it was forced to execute more than 60,000 yuan; on February 20, Nanchang Black Shark Technology once again added the information of the person to be executed, and the amount reached more than 80,000 yuan.

Black Shark Technology, founded in 2017, was once a popular mobile phone brand. In 2018, Black Shark Technology received an investment of 11 million yuan from Tianjin Jinxing Investment Company, a subsidiary of Xiaomi . In just one year, Black Shark Technology quickly emerged in the gaming phone market. In 2019, its market share in the gaming phone market was as high as 47%, and in the first quarter of the following year, this figure soared to 72%.

However, as competition in the industry continues to intensify, coupled with the gradual separation from Xiaomi, its major backer, Black Shark Technology, whose competitiveness continues to decline, is inevitably heading for decline.

For Black Shark Technology, 2022 is an important turning point. Its market share in the gaming phone market has fallen outside the top five, and it has been replaced by major manufacturers.

In August of the same year, Black Shark Technology, which was facing an increasingly significant business crisis, started a layoff plan. From August to December 2022, Black Shark Technology laid off nearly 80% of its employees in five batches, and the compensation to be paid was approximately 70 million to 80 million yuan.

However, Black Shark Technology, which was in a state of decline, failed to pay off its debts in a timely manner. Earlier this year, the first installment of compensation that was supposed to be paid on January 10 was not paid in full, so a large number of Black Shark Technology employees revolted and even went to the company's offices with banners to demand compensation.

Now, Black Shark Technology is once again involved in a new lawsuit dispute. From soaring to the sky with the help of Xiaomi to falling from the cloud and losing its competitiveness, Black Shark Technology's road to breaking through is still a long way to go.